This page contains A*/A grade level summary revision notes for the Natural law topic.

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AO1: Aquinas’ Natural law ethics

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.

AO2: Whether Natural law is outdated

J S Mill claims the divine law of the bible, especially the old testament, was only relevant in an ancient more barbaric time.
We can also apply this critique to Natural law ethics:
Its precepts reflect the medieval socio-economic conditions it was created in.
Sex outside marriage could be a death sentence because sex led to children and single mothers struggled to survive.
Reproduction required emphasis because so many children died.
The murder rate was around 60-70 times today’s, showing a need for strict rules against killing.
Today, these conditions are significantly changed. We have contraception, overpopulation, lower crime, and children born outside wedlock are not doomed to starve or lack education.
Aquinas’ precepts made sense in his time but are now outdated.

Counter

However, philosophically speaking, outdated doesn’t mean incorrect, just that popular opinion has shifted.
Aquinas would say the precepts come from God, so can’t be outdated.
If society thinks they are outdated, Aquinas would say society has gone wrong.

Evaluation:

However, this critique is not simply that popular opinion has changed, which indeed proves nothing.
The argument is 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, the fact that his precepts are so neatly aligned with the needs of his time is unlikely to be a coinscidence.
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.
He then mistakenly attributed his insight to a rational intuition of the natural law in human nature designed by God.
His notion that the precepts came from God was only in his imagination.

AO2: Modern scientific rejection of telos (Aquinas)

Since Francis Bacon in the early enlightenment, telos has been rejected as metaphysical and unempirical.
Modern science explains the universe through atoms, energy and forces, not purpose.
There is no space in our scientific understanding of the universe for anything like a purpose to exist.
Sean Carroll concludes that purpose is not built into the universe’s ‘architecture’.
Aquinas’ ethics presupposes that telos exists within human nature, to orient us towards knowing the primary precepts.
Evolution would explain this through a herd species being programmed with social instincts like empathy and awareness of social dynamics like fairness and reciprocity.
This could explain the apparent intuitiveness of precepts like protecting life and social order.
On the modern scientific view, these are not objectively ‘moral’ orientations from a God, they are just what is evolutionarily advantageous to our species.
So telos appears obsolete.

Counter

Physicist and theologian Polkinghorne defends the empiricism of purpose.
He argues that science investigates the ‘what’, e.g., what laws of physics exist, but not why we have any laws at all, especially ones fine-tuned for our existence.
On this view, science does point to the need for an ultimate explanation of purpose, which is beyond the limits of empiricism to fully understand.

Evaluation

However, even this more contemporary development of purpose cannot survive modern empirical critique.
Max Tegmark argues science may one day explain why the universe exists, reducing the ‘why’ to non-teleological concepts.
Or, Russell could be right that there is no ‘why’: the universe could be a brute fact.
So, final causation is an unnecessary unscientific concept.
The laws of nature are a mystery, but Polkinghorne risks an unempirical God of the gaps fallacy in assuming the explanation must be teleological.
Until we have a clear observation of change which requires telos to explain, the enlightenment rejection of aristotelian final causation as obsolete is justified.
What Aquinas assumed to be the rational apprehension of God’s precepts through synderesis could just be the evolved ape’s awareness of its evolutionary programming.

AO2: Moral variation

Fletcher argues that cross-cultural moral variation is a weakness of Aquinas and a strength of psychological accounts like Freud’s.
Aquinas claimed that conscience involves the ability of reason to know the primary precepts, to guide us towards our good end (telos).
This faces the issue that it doesn’t appear humans have the same moral compass, because different cultures have different moral views.
The problem deepens because disagreement is not random but tends to fall along cultural boundaries.
This makes culture and conditioning the better explanation of our moral intuitions, rather than synderesis or telos.
Such scientific accounts, e.g., of Freud and Skinner, appear to have greater explanatory power than Aquinas’.

Counter

Aquinas would point to the 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.
This is evidence for Aquinas’ view that God designed human reason to recognise the basic moral truths of natural law through synderesis.
Aquinas can then explain away moral disagreement as original sin and corrupt cultures which create a habit of turning away from our telos.

Evaluation

However, science provides better explanations of the core moral views found in all cultures.
Dawkins argued our moral sense partly came from evolution programming us with empathy to care about social order, other people, reproduction, education, 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.
A culture which allowed killing and stealing would fall apart.
So, no supernatural explanation of cross-cultural moral codes is needed.
We shouldn’t believe conscience is God’s design directing us towards our telos then.
It’s better explained by the nature and nurture that goes into human moral decision making.

AO2: 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.

AO2: 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

Revision paragraphs:

AO1: Aquinas’ Natural law ethics
AO2: Whether Natural law is outdated
AO2: Modern scientific rejection of telos (Aquinas)
AO2: Moral variation
AO2: Karl Barth’s protestant critique
AO2: 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]

AO1: Aquinas’ Natural law ethics (focused on and full detail for telos)
AO2: Modern scientific rejection of telos (Aquinas)
- Intro sentence: Modern science would say that it cannot be right to base ethics on telos because they argue it doesn’t exist.
AO2: Karl Barth’s protestant critique
- Intro sentence: Karl Barth argued Christian ethics could not be based on telos because telos depends on a dangerously unreliable natural theology.
AO2: Moral variation
- 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: Aquinas’ Natural law ethics (focused on and full detail for the double effect)
AO2: Proportionalism & the double effect
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.
Karl Barth criticises Aquians’ use of reason to derive ethical judgements on the basis of our alignment with telos. The double effect is based on intention mattering – because what we intend is an important part of what aligns us towards our end. So Barth would say the double effect troublingly extends the same mistake as the whole of natural law ethics.

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.
AO1: Aquinas’ Natural law ethics (focused on and full detail for telos)
AO2: Modern scientific rejection of telos (Aquinas)
AO2: Karl Barth’s protestant critique
- Barth thinks that even if there is a telos, our fallenness prevents our knowing it or acting on it through our reason as Aquinas presumes.
AO2: Moral variation
- Suggests there is no telos – or, that we are unable to know it.

Analyse Aquinas’ four tiers of law. [40]

AO1: Aquinas’ Natural law ethics (focused on the four tiers of law)
Any of the AO2 points could work:
AO2: Karl Barth’s protestant critique
- would disagree with including natural law alongside the others, as he’s a sola scriptura protestant.
AO2: Moral variation
- Fletcher would also disagree – he rejects catholic natural law based on cultural variability.
AO2: Modern scientific rejection of telos (Aquinas)
- Would say there is no telos and thus no natural law.
AO2: Whether Natural law is outdated
- Argues the natural law is just as outdated as the divine law of the bible – so both fail.
AO2: Proportionalism & the double effect
- Would say the four tiers could only work if we update natural law to be more flexible.