St Thomas Aquinas’ theory of natural law was mainly influence by the works of Aristotle and Plato. Aquinas’ was a Christian philosopher and theologian who developed a fuller account of the natural law. He describes natural law as a moral code existing within the purpose of nature that reflects Gods law, in a sense it is am aid to allow humans to achieve Gods given laws. Aristotle’s idea of purpose may have influenced him to expand on the idea. Aquinas’ theory of natural law differs from ‘divine command theory’ as Natural law is more accessible to all and it relies on reason. Furthermore Aquinas’ theory evaluates both acts and attitude as it allows humans to glorify God an express what a good God is.
Like Aristotle, Aquinas explains how humans aim for a purpose but unlike Aristotle who believes this is happiness, he believes all humans are ‘made in the image of God’. Therefore the supreme good must be the development of this image of God, which is perfection. This perfection, according to Aquinas was not possible to be achieved in this life but only in the next life and the purpose of morality is to allow us to fulfill our desires. A fundamental part of his theory Is to achieve as much good as possible and avoiding evil. He believes this because we were created for one purpose and that is perfection .Aquinas believed that there was no such thing as evil as we are all made in the image of God, therefore it is logical for Aquinas to say humans do not carry out evil but apparent goods. For example if a person commits adultery he or she believes that it is good , although this is an error of reason they have apparently done the right thing according to them. Aquinas’ theory of natural law greatly stresses the fact that our nature is knowable and we need to use our reason to know it and understand it.
The fundamental primary principles of natural law are of great importance to Aquinas’s theory. They are always true and always apply to everyone. They are: the preservation of life, continuation of species, educating children, lives in society and worshiping God, which is the most important. Although some aspects of these precepts can be debatable, masturbation is against the primary precept as it does not preserve life. But then one can rebuttal and say that rape would be acceptable as it preserving life.
The secondary precepts are more flexible and realistic; they are a specific application of primary precepts, such as; do not murder and defend the defenseless. Such examples do not need working out the moral code as they take into account our human limitations and weaknesses, therefore they are presented as relatively straight forward.
‘Natural law is unjust’ Discuss
In my opinion there is no ethical theory that pleases everyone, there is bound to one or more flaws. Such theories that have been worked on very many years ago prove hard to search for answers concerning our modern world.
Natural law finds it exceedingly challenging to relate to complex decisions to basic principles, for example ; should more money be spent helping charities or on hospitals. It leaves one stuck between two options. Abortion would be considered against the natural ethic code. Having an abortion is stopping life and limiting reproduction, against ‘many and multiply’. But putting abortion in the context of saving a life shows a different perspective. If the mother was in a situation where she would not be able to supporting a child, surely that would benefit instead create life that would suffer. Another topic that is disputable is contraception. Similarly with contraception it is prohibiting new life but then again it can be for the greater good. For example protected sex prevents sexually transmitted diseases. Furthermore a weakness to natural moral law according to Aquinas’ is that it assumes everyone carries out good acts, I find this slightly deluded and optimistic. I find hard to believe that acts such as rape an apparent good, surely one who carries out such an action knows that this is wrong; some people may want to be perceived as evil for unknown reasons. Different societies have different natural values therefore it is hard accepting one universal law.
Among the weaknesses, there are several strengths to natural law. It does give a concise, clear-cut approach to morality and establishing common rules which day to day topics can be related to. It has a fairly positive approach by mainly concentrating on the potential goodness than the wrong. Furthermore Natural law concentrates on the character of humans and there potential for goodness rather than the right or wrong decisions on certain acts, it attempts to bring the best out of a situation, it proves to allow some degree of flexibility. It also emphasizes the fulfillment of our natures, all the things we require for happiness – health, friends, the purpose of our existence and morality.
Some aspects of natural law I believe to be unjust, such as abortion for the greater good. It seems to be a very optimistic ethical view, which seeks only the good in humans, but in a sense it seems to shun bad as a whole which In my opinion is unjust.
