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Aquinas’ Natural law ethics AO1

Aquinas was influenced by Aristotle’s concept of telos, that all things have a nature which orientates them towards their good end.
Natural law ethics is the theory that God designed human nature with the ability to know general moral precepts. This is the part of our telos that orients us towards our purpose of glorifying God by following his moral law.
For Aquinas, Christian morality therefore includes more than the Bible. He indicated this in his four tiers of law
The Eternal law is God’s mind and omnibenevolent plan for the universe. This is beyond our understanding. So, God has granted us access to lesser laws which derive from God’s eternal law.
The Divine law – the bible
The Natural law – the orientation towards the good built into our nature by God
The Human law – laws we make which should be based on the natural & divine law.
As part of our telos, God designs humans with reason that has an ability called synderesis. This allows us to intuitively know first the synderesis rule or ‘key precept’, which is to do good and avoid evil, and then the primary precepts of natural law.
These are, to preserve human life, reproduce, educate, live in an orderly society and worship God.
We then apply the primary precepts to moral actions/situations and get a secondary precept, which is a judgement on that particular action/situation. The entire process is called conscientia.
E.g. euthanasia goes against the primary precept to preserve human life – therefore ‘euthanasia is wrong’ would be a secondary precept.
Double effect. Some actions have two effects – one that goes against the primary precepts, and one that fits with them.
E.g. killing someone in self-defence – one effect is killing someone, but the other effect is saving your life.
Intentionality condition: Aquinas says in situations like this, it is morally acceptable so long as you intended to bring about the good effect and the bad effect was beside your intention.
There must also be proportionality – e.g. if you use more force than is necessary then that’s no longer acceptable.
The traditional Catholic approach adds some further conditions:
Nature of the act condition: There is also a condition that the bad effect not be an intrinsic evil – like killing an innocent person or adultery.

Whether Natural law is outdated

J S Mill says the divine law of the bible, especially the old testament, was clearly only relevant in an ancient more barbaric time.
Mill’s argument can also be applied to Natural law ethics.
It was created in a mediaeval socio-economic time and its rules reflect that.
In Aquinas’ time, having sex outside marriage was often a death sentence because sex led to children, and single mothers struggled to survive. There was a great need for reproduction, because so many children died – which was part of why it was against homosexuality, because of the intense need for reproduction. Homosexuality was also seen as against the nuclear family dynamic, which was also needed for reproduction and education.
There was around 60-70 times the murder rate in Aquinas time, showing the clear need for really strict rules against killing – which is why being against euthanasia made sense then.
Today, these socio-economic conditions are no longer present. We now have effective contraception and support for single parents. We have overpopulation, and it’s no longer the case that children outside marriage are doomed to lack education.
The reasoning behind Aquinas’ views on the primary precepts, including their application to euthanasia and sexual ethics, no longer apply.
It is outdated. In Aquinas’ time, his reasoning made sense – but that was because of the dire situation society was in.

Counter

outdated doesn’t mean wrong, it just describes that popular opinion has shifted.
Aquinas would say the precepts come from God, so can’t be outdated. If society thinks they are outdated, then Aquinas would say our society is wrong!

evaluation:

However – the Critique is not just that Aquinas is outdated in that popular opinion has changed – the best version of the ‘outdated’ critique is to argue that Aquinas’ theory was actually a reaction to his socio-economic context and since that has changed, Natural law is no longer relevant.
Aquinas thought that he discovered the primary precepts through human reason, as God designed. However, arguably it’s a simpler explanation that Aquinas was simply figuring out what would have been good for people in his time period & socio-economic condition. His belief that the resulting precepts actually came from God was only in his imagination.

Modern science’s rejection of final causation (telos)

There’s no scientific evidence for purpose/telos – science can explain everything in the universe, or is at least progressing towards explaining everything, without needing the concept of ‘purpose/telos’.
At the beginning of the enlightenment period, scientist Francis Bacon claimed that the concept of ‘telos’ was unscientific.
The modern scientific view is that the universe is just composed of atoms and energy in fields of force. There is no space in our scientific understanding of the universe for anything like purpose or telos to exist.
Physicist Sean Carroll concludes purpose is not built into the ‘architecture’ of the universe.
Telos looks like an outdated unscientific term that people just mentally project onto reality.
Aristotle said an acorn must have the telos of growing into an oak tree. But we now understand thanks to modern science that this can be explained purely through material and efficient causation – the DNA of acorn.
Similarly, human nature might behaviourally orient us, but this too can be explained by evolution.
Evolution in a herd species will generate instincts like empathy. These are not intrinsically ‘moral’ behaviours from a God, they are just what were evolutionarily advantageous to our species.
So again, science can explain everything about us without the need for the concept of telos – making it an unscientific concept.
Human nature is not the result of anything God-given like telos.

Counter

Purpose is nonetheless an important part of human life.
Polkinghorne argues that science can explain the ‘what’ but not the ‘why’. Science investigates what is true of the universe. Polkinghorne claims we do need the concept of purpose, to explain why the universe exists in the way it does. Science can’t explain that.

Evaluation

Max Tegmark argues one day scientists might actually explain why the universe exists. This would reduce the ‘why’ to non-teleological scientific concepts.
Or, Russell could be right that there is no ‘why’, the universe could be a brute fact. Dawkins develops this point. Just because it’s possible to ask the question ‘why’, that doesn’t mean there actually is a why.
Either way, we have no basis for thinking telos exists nor any need for it as an explanation.
So, purpose only exists in people’s minds.

This critique of Aquinas is successful because of the clear power of science.
Science has transformed our world through its immense explanatory power. Although it cannot absolutely disprove telos, it does show that we have no reason to believe that telos exists. Ockham’s razor further justifies this approach. We are justified in believing the simpler explanation that works. If we have a scientific explanation it is simpler than those which require supernatural beings.
Aquinas’ theory fails – scientific approaches are better explanations.

Natural law ethics & Cross-cultural moral variation

Fletcher argues a weakness of Aquinas’ approach is cross-cultural moral differences.
Aquinas claimed that conscience involves the ability of reason to know the primary precepts, to guide us towards our good end (telos). But if that was true, it should be universally true of all humans regardless of their culture. We would expect to find more moral agreement.
Different cultures have different moral views – e.g. some countries are more religious and thus ban euthanasia, but other countries allow euthanasia.
Not only is there disagreement, it tends to fall along cultural boundaries. Culture and social conditioning is therefore the better explanation of what determines our moral compass, not telos. This was the view of psychologists like Freud and Skinner. Their scientific approach looks stronger than Aquinas’.

Counter

Aquinas would disagree – he would say that even though there’s disagreement there is still a core set of moral views all cultures share which is very similar to the primary precepts..
Everyone agrees that killing for no reason is wrong, everyone agrees an orderly society is good, reproduction is good, education is good.
Moral disagreement could just be the result of sinful and corrupt cultures and original sin.

Evaluation

However, we have other, better, more scientific explanations of the core moral views found in all cultures.
Richard Dawkins argued our moral sense partly came from evolution – which programmed us with empathy to care about other people, reproduce, educate, etc, all of which is evolutionarily advantageous for a herd species like us.
Furthermore, there is just a practical requirement for a society to exist. Imagine a culture started allowing killing and stealing – it would fall apart and end. So no special explanation of cross-cultural moral codes is needed.
Conscience isn’t God’s design directing us towards our telos then. It’s from evolution, social conditioning and social practicality.
Aquinas’ supernatural explanation of explain cross-cultural moral agreement is an unnecessary hypothesis.
Aquinas’ whole theory of natural law is better explained by scientific analysis of the nature and nurture that goes into human moral decision making.
Freud’s scientific approach is a simpler and better explanation of our moral compass than Aquinas’ theological approach.
So, we do not need the idea of natural law built into us by a God as our telos. That is an unnecessary hypothesis.

Aquinas’ Natural theology vs Karl Barth’s protestant critique

Catholics tend to follow natural law ethics. They argue its strength is its foundation in natural theology, the view that humans can gain knowledge of God’s revelation through their own minds.
In Romans, St Paul comments that the law of God is written on the heart of every human, even those who have never heard of God.
This supports a natural law in addition to the biblical divine law.
Telos is Aquinas’ explanation of the mechanism for the law being within our nature.

Counter

Karl Barth rejected natural theology as placing a dangerous overreliance on human reason.
Reason is corrupted by original sin. Original sin might not have totally destroyed reason, but it does make it unreliable.
“The finite has no capacity for the infinite”.

Our finite minds have no – zero – capacity to understand God’s infinite nature.
So, we should not use reason to know God.
If we make a mistake when trying to use reason to know God, then we will gain a false view of God and could end up worshipping the wrong thing – perhaps even worshipping something earthly – which is idolatry. This is dangerous as it can lead to the worship of human things like nations, fatherlands, and that he argued contributed to Nazism.
Barth concluded we should solely rely on faith in the Bible (sola scriptura protestant).

Evaluation:

Barth’s argument is unsuccessful because Aquinas isn’t saying reason can grasp God’s infinite being.
With natural law, reason isn’t grasping God’s infinite eternal law – just the lesser natural law within our nature.
Through reason we can also know that God has a quality of love/power/knowledge which is analogous to ours yet proportionally greater than our own.
Aquinas’ approach is successful because he takes care not to claim too much about God based on reason.
Reason may sometimes indeed be corrupted, but that doesn’t mean it will always be corrupted. Sometimes, with God’s grace, human reason is capable of knowing something about God.

Proportionalism & the double effect

Proportionalists like B. Hoose argued that the double effect didn’t make natural law flexible enough.
Their argument is that God designed the natural law and our telos within the garden of Eden. This means it only functions in our pre-lapsarian state. Back then, following the natural law perfectly enabled flourishing.
In this fallen world, acting on the primary precepts can actually be disabling of flourishing because of the presence of ontic evil (whatever inhibits flourishing, like suffering).
Proportionalists conclude that following natural law is valid, but if an action causes a greater balance of ontic good (enables flourishing) compared to ontic evil then it is morally justified – even if it goes against the primary precepts.
This gives the double effect much more flexibility and would even allow acts previously condemned as intrinsically immoral like killing innocents.

Counter

Pope John Paul II rejected proportionalism, arguing it is an invalid development of true natural law ethics.
He argues that the point of natural law is our intentional alignment with God’s moral law. That is our telos.
Proportionalism forgets that our true telos is to follow God, not to secure our happiness, nor even our lives.
Following God’s moral law is more important than enabling our flourishing. In fact, doing intrinsically evil acts corrupts our alignment with God. JP2 points to the example of Christian martyrs who died for their faith. It is better to die than do something evil.
Proportionalism misunderstands the point of Christian ethics, which is to follow God’s moral law.

Evaluation

JP2 has a point. The very concept of accusing Christian ethics as ‘inflexibile’ misunderstands it. If God has decreed certain laws, then it is right for us to follow them, no matter what happens to us.
However, the proportionalists also have a point that flourishing was meant to be a component of following the natural law – as Aquinas said.
Furthermore – consider Fletcher’s case of the family faced with the choice of killing their crying baby or all being discovered by bandits who would kill them all, including the baby, if discovered.
JP2 has selected a self-serving example of the christian martyrs. Sacrificing oneself for the sake of others is valid in Christianity, as shown by the example of Jesus.
However, in Fletcher’s example, if we do not kill the baby – we would be sacrificing other people (the other family members), including other children, not just yourself, simply to do the ‘right’ thing by all dying. Is it really ok to get your other kids killed, just because you wouldn’t kill one of them?
This is a terrible moral choice, but it does show the limits of traditional natural law ethics.
The presence of ontic evil in our fallen world is relevant to the moral situation in a way that John Paul II did not adequately address.

Question preparation

Key paragraphs:

AO1 for Natural Law, inc double effect
The ‘outdated’ critique
The scientific critique of telos
Fletcher’s ‘cross-cultural’ critique
Karl Barth’s protestant critique of natural law
Proportionalism & the double effect

Question types:

Questions could focus on:

Telos & human nature (Our telos is to glorify God by following his natural moral law).
Four tiers of law
The precepts
The double effect

Can judging something as right or wrong be based on whether it achieves its telos? [40]

Aquinas AO1
Scientific critique of telos
- Intro sentence: Modern science would say that it cannot be right to base ethics on telos because they argue it doesn’t exist.
Karl Barth’s critique
- Intro sentence: Karl Barth argued Christian ethics could not be based on telos because telos depends on a dangerously unreliable natural theology.
Cross-cultural variation
- Intro sentence: Fletcher would say telos cannot help us judge right from wrong because it doesn’t exist as evidenced by cross-cultural disagreement.

Question on the double effect:

AO1 is on double effect and the parts of natural law necessary to understanding it, like the primary precepts.
Need one paragraph which focuses on the double effect. Proportionalism works best – says it’s not flexible enough.
Fine to do some general evaluation of natural law in such a question – e.g., if the primary precepts are outdated, culturally variable or natural theology fails, then the double effect is invalid by extension.

Weirdly worded questions:

Is the universe designed with a telos? [40]

This question looks like it’s about the teleological argument but if it comes up in the ethics exam, it’s about natural law ethics.
Science & the outdated critique: no
Barth & Fletcher: even if there is a telos, we’re just unable to know it or to act on it.

Analyse Aquinas’ four tiers of law. [40]

Remember that natural law is one of the four tiers. Natural law ethics is the theory that Christian ethics can be sourced from more than just the bible but also the reason within our nature as a function of our telos. The four tiers of law are essentially Aquians’ assertion of natural law having an important place in Christian ethics. So the question is really asking you to assess that.
Barth would disagree – he’s a sola scriptura protestant.
Fletcher would disagree – he rejects catholic natural law based on cultural variability.
Scientific critique of telos – would say there is no telos and thus no natural law.
Outdated critique – would say the natural law is just as outdated as the divine law of the bible – so both fail.
Proportionalism – would say the four tiers could only work if we update natural law to be more flexible.

So anything could work for this question really!